Dupont's Website:	To review the challenges, requirements, and helpful hints.
	UMAHS Library Research Hub:	Lots of links to curated research.
	Foundation for Critical Thinking:	Strategies for approaching a project like this!
	DuPont Sponsored Video	Video with Hints from past winners.

The Challenge:

"As the world population continues to grow and become more connected than ever, The DuPont Challenge asks students to consider our most important challenges by researching and writing a 700-1,000-word science essay in one of the four categories:

• FOOD: Together, we can feed the world.
• ENERGY: Together, we can build a secure energy future.
• PROTECTION: Together, we can protect people and the environment.
• INNOVATION: Together, we can be innovative anywhere.

The first three categories reflect the global challenges on which DuPont as a company focuses its efforts. The fourth category opens up possibilities for students to address other important topics, using scientific research to solve issues that can range from medicine and health to mathematical computation to any science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) topic that students are passionate about."

The Finished Product:

Students will demonstrate their passion for their chosen subject by writing a 700 to 1,000-word essay within the four categories of challenges listed above.

One of the most important things to remember is that this should be a science essay rather than a science report. We make an important distinction between these two writing approaches for the purpose of this competition. Reports and essays are two very different things:

• A report’s purpose is to provide information. An effective report is clearly written and well organized, and it tells readers things that they did not know before about a topic that is worth knowing more about.
• An essay also provides information—but it does more. An essay not only gives facts about its subject but shows its writer’s enthusiasm for and intellectual involvement with that subject. In an essay, unlike a report, the writer lets his or her personality come through.

A science essay is a journey. Think of it as the record created by a person who has ventured out to the edge of scientific discovery through his or her research, and has come back with a new understanding of it—a new understanding that he or she is eager to share with others.